Anti-slavery Monthly Reporter

So much space has recently been occupied in discussing the question of a want of a Sunday for the slaves; and in pointing out the miserably defective nature of that education and religious instruction they are said to be receiving that we fear lest our readers should begin to imagine that these constitute the exclusive evils of colonial slavery, and that, if these were but obviated, the work of reformation would be accomplished. This were a fatal misconception. The prevailing want of a Sunday is, indeed, most-adverse to the hope of christianizing the slave population, and it reveals, at the same time, the insincerity of those, who, while they either conceal the fact of this compulsory desecration of the Sabbath, or resist or postpone the measures necessary for its prevention, are nevertheless loud, both in the profession of their zeal for the religious instruction of the slaves, and in the boast of the religious improvement that has been effected among them. But, even if a Sabbath were at length given to the slaves, and more efficient plans of instruction were adopted, little benefit would accrue, even from these improvements, under a system so debasing and brutalizing in its character and effects, and so incompatible with the purity and elevation of christianity, as is that species of personal bondage which exists in the slave colonies of Europe. For be it remembered, that even the British Critic has not scrupled to describe that system as one by which "the whole order of nature is reversed; the labourer being excited to labour, not by hope, but by fear; punishments inflicted in England by the magistrate for crimes, being inflicted there by the master for idleness or impertinence; the supply of daily food, and the maintenance of wife and children not being dependent on the exertion, self-denial, skill, or good character of the individual; christian marriage being almost unknown; the human form divine being treated as if it were no better than a brute or a machine; degraded to a chattel, seized by the.creditor, sold in the market-place, and exposed to every indignity which tyranny or caprice may dictate."

This and all other publications of the Society, may be had at their office, 18, Aldermanbury ; or at Messrs. Hatchard's, 187, Piccadilly, and Arch's, Cornhill. They may also be procured, through any bookseller, or at the devots of the AntiSlavery Society throughout the kingdom.

And, when we add to this sad picture, the excess of labour to which men and women are subjected by the most brutal coercion; the scantiness of their food; the frequent and forcible disruption of their dearest domestic ties; the tremendous severity of the punishments which may be inflicted on them, by individual caprice, for any offence or for no offence-we may well abandon the hope of seeing christianity flourish in such a population, continuing bereft, as it is by its present actual circumstances, even of that first principle of moral and spiritual life, the power of voluntary agency. Is it possible to contemplate the whole of this system, in all its length and breadth of oppression and enormity, without coming to the conclusion of the same British Critic, that it MUST BE RADICALLY REFORMED; in other words, it must be extinguished, root and branch.

Having made these general remarks with a view of guarding against misconception, we shall now proceed to notice, as succinctly as we can, what has recently passed in parliament on the subject of slavery.

1. Slave Evidence.

On the 25th of May, Mr. Brougham, who had given notice of his intention to bring forward a Bill for the purpose of making the evidence of slaves admissible in all cases, subject only to those exceptions to which the evidence of all other parties is liable, begged to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether his Majesty's Government had not a similar plan in contemplation. He felt it to be so important that the measure should originate with them, that, if such was their intention, he would gladly resign it into their hands.-Sir George Murray entirely concurred with Mr. Brougham in his sense of the extreme importance of the subject, and also in his view of the propriety and safety of making the evidence of slaves admissible without any other than the ordinary reserves and exceptions. He did not even see the necessity of those records of baptism, or certificates of character from religious instructors, which it had been thought, by some persons, expedient to require. To require preliminary tests of religious belief and information did not appear to him a course well adapted to advance the ends of justice, or even to promote the interests of religion itself. He had always been of the opinion, that the holding out a temptation of a secular kind to any one, to adopt a particular set of religious sentiments, was injurious and degrading to religion itself. The session was now too far advanced to do any thing in this matter with effect; but, it was his intention, in the next session, to propose a bill for the reform of the Colonial Judicatures, founded on the reports of the Commissioners of Judicial Inquiry in the West Indies; and he purposed to introduce into that Bill a clause for admitting, universally, the evidence of slaves on the same footing as that of other persons. He saw no reason for clogging the measure with distinctions to the slave's disadvantage.

In reply to a question from Mr. Bernal, Sir George Murray observed, that the measure he meant to propose to parliament would apply to the Slave Colonies generally, and not to the Crown Colonies alone. Indeed, one of the chartered colonies, Grenada, had already, he believed, anticipated the measure which the Government contemplated.

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Anti-slavery Monthly Reporter, Volumen3